


something about kisses

by homsantoft (tofsla)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:37:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla/pseuds/homsantoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Free-standing ficlets in response to kiss meme prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "I'm sorry" kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Title notes:
> 
>  _jag läste nåt om kyssar,_  
>  _nånting som alla vet_  
>  _men som de aldrig lyckas fånga_  
>  _i filmerna man ser_  
>  / Cowboys - Kent

“You savage brute,” Dorian says. He has said it before. A dozen times, a hundred—he has meant many things by it. These days, he means—well, something warm. Something fond and playful.

But he misses his mark. The wrong words, the wrong moment. It has been a bad day, and he has tried to lighten it in the worst of ways.

It goes like this:

Bull doesn’t laugh and he doesn’t prod back. He says: “yeah.” He drags his hand heavily over his tired face, shortened fingers against his cheek, how much he bears. He says: “I know.”

The Storm Coast lies between them in that moment, and Bull is all at sea, absolutely lost. It hurts to see. To have caused.

The worst thing is that he looks defeated. Angry would be better—and that’s a guilty thought, too, in light of—well. Things being what they are. Dorian must always needle—in anger or in fondness, he hardly knows another way to speak. But, he is coming to realise, he must learn. Fight for it, if need be. There must be a time for honesty, even on this most serious of topics.

“No,” he says. “No, Bull, I didn’t for one moment mean it. I know I shouldn’t have said it. It was unfair.”

Bull shrugs.

“I’ll not call you anything of the sort again,” Dorian says. “I won’t have it being another one of your jokes that you worry about the truth of. I refuse.”

“You’re not meant to know that,” Bull says. “Has Cole been talking or am I just losing my touch?”

“Perhaps I’m just more invested than I should be,” Dorian says softly, and oh how he despises confessions, but Bull has earnt this much. “Not that it seems to have helped me very much. Bull—”

“Yeah,” Bull says. “It’s fine, you don’t need to say it.”

“I do,” Dorian says. He takes a deep breath, settles himself before Bull, kneels, an offering. He takes Bull’s hand, as gently as he can; raises it to his lips. “I’m sorry for my thoughtlessness.”

Bull’s knuckles are rough against his lips when he kisses them, and he stays bowed to them, closes his eyes, the feeling welling up inside him too much to take.

“You may be the best man I know,” he says, lips moving against Bull’s skin. When Bull’s free hand comes to rest carefully on the back of Dorian’s head he cannot help but gasp.

“Dorian,” Bull says, and oh, how uncertain he sounds.

His fingers slide through Dorian’s hair, come to rest warm and heavy against his scalp.

“You are no manner of savage brute,” Dorian says, and presses a fresh kiss to Bull’s knuckles, to the back of his hand, the long scar running across it. “You will never be any such thing—I swear to you—”

And finally, finally, the tension goes out of Bull. He laughs, laughs—

“Hey, easy there,” he says. “Next you’re going to say my personal hygiene leaves nothing to be desired.”

“Oh, you are _insufferable_ ,” Dorian says, because their are limits to his tentative attempts at gentleness. He smiles, even this against Bull’s hand. “I think I may love you.”


	2. "I've missed you" kiss

The first warning the Bull gets is from Varric: someone has heard from a contact that some carta grunt saw Dorian Pavus on the road near Lydes, swear to you, can’t have been any other vint, I quote, fucking dragon’s tooth and everything. Riding like he thought he’d race the wind, that poor horse. Yeah, that was a few days ago, and if he’s riding that hard I doubt word made it much quicker than he did. Hey, Tiny, you even listening to this?

The Bull is listening, but he’s also reckoning: how often does a horse need to rest, where are the inquisition posts that would give him a fresh mount, the mountains are always slower of course but—

Tomorrow. Dorian will probably show tomorrow. Maybe early, if he has luck. Time for him to bathe and eat and be shown thoroughly how much he’s been missed.

He has, he has been missed. Dorian, who was identified by the dragon’s tooth. He wears it on his belt, too heavy for a pendant even on such a sturdy man, and oh, he’s sturdy, gorgeous and strong and marked, openly, as the Bull’s. Fuck, that’s a thought.

And in this way they have been together, of course, but yes, life has on occasion taken them far from one another. There are political stirrings in Tevinter, and Dorian assists as he can, and comes home when he’s done, and it’s never soon enough.

But he rides as hard as he can.

In fact, he has ridden harder than the Bull had counted on. He arrives that same evening, in through the gates with an echoing clatter of hooves, and the Bull, crossing the upper yard, is arrested by the sight; makes it down the stairs in a scramble, three at a time, and Dorian is leaping from his horse—exhausted, he looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, his hair a mess—beautiful.

He stumbles as he lands, but the Bull is already there, sweeps his arms around him and pulls him up onto his toes and kisses him, deep and hot and perfectly messy, and thrills at the way it takes no time at all for Dorian to relax into it.


	3. Angry kiss

A game:

In the Emerald Graves, the Iron Bull laughs too loud, hefts his axe with an unnecessary amount of demonstrative flexing. Dorian casts him a filthy look. 

"I shall write a book," he says, "explaining how to wear a shirt. There will be clear diagrams, and I'll use only very small words. All of Thedas will thank me."

His face is flushed. It could very nearly be passed off as the product of physical exertion. He bites the inside of his lip, shifts his weight almost, almost casually from one foot to the other.

"Aw," the Iron Bull says, with deliberately infuriating fondness. "You admit I know how to read."

"Of your intelligence I have no doubt," Dorian says. Sour, as sour as he can make it, think of Aquinea addressing some unfortunate modiste. "Your ability to play-act the fool when it pleases you, likewise."

"Don't know why I'd bother to play-act anything when I'm in the presence of such a master," the Iron Bull says, and Dorian huffs, swears, sharp and hissing. 

Tevene is good for that: _vishante kaffas_. Spines turned outward.

In the Emprise du Lion, Dorian shivers, and the Iron Bull, unconcerned with the way in which the cold makes his nipples that much more distractingly present, offers barbs about the state of Dorian's toes.

"Can you even _feel_ anything?" Dorian snarls, jabs a finger at the Iron Bull's chest. He is not careful. His nail, long and a little sharp, catches at the skin, leaves a tiny crescent mark behind it. Dorian struggles to look away from it. The heat is that of shame, ins't it? Because he lost control, perhaps?

He did not lose control.

"Why don't we test that?" the Iron Bull says.

By night they freeze in the Hissing Wastes, and by day they boil. Sweat runs down the back of the Iron Bull's neck, down his chest. He heaves deep breaths. Dorian's hair sticks unpleasantly to his scalp. The wildlife has tried on no less than twenty occasions to eat them, and seems to see no reason to change a losing strategy.

"Do ever bathe?" he says.

That laugh of the Iron Bull's, again, the most infuriating sound Dorian knows. The best. "You like it."

"I most certainly do not." He does. His breath hitches on a memory. An expanse of skin, intimate darkness.

"No? Ah, shit, I guess I'd better—"

"You are _impossible_."

The Iron Bull smiles, a slow thing, full of anticipation. "I am. What you going to do about it?"

The game has only one end. 

Dorian, breathless with something he can easily pretend is rage, incoherent with what is certainly frustration, grabs the Iron Bull ungently by the horn, hisses angry words of hatred to him, tells him how little he wants him, how terrible his clothing, how unsightly his muscles. Kisses him, of course, with biting force, bruises both their lips in his hurry, wound far too tightly to consider care. The Iron Bull holds him through it, groans at the press of their bodies. Hisses at the harshness of Dorian's teeth and at the uneven pressure of some rock-face at his back.

Sometimes, Dorian draws blood. Those are good days, the Iron Bull's favourites. He wears marks like trophies.

"What exactly happened to your face, then?" Jana asks, afterwards.

"A terrible thing," Dorian answers on the Iron Bull's behalf, "but I suppose we can only be grateful that it's nothing worse—attacked by some wild creature, you know."

This time when the Iron Bull laughs, Dorian only takes his hand, raises it to his lips for a gentle kiss—only rolls his eyes when Sera wolf-whistles. Only smiles into it when the Iron Bull draws him closer for the very softest of kisses, lips to bloodied lips, where everyone can see.


	4. Shy kiss (NSFW)

Oh, they have kissed: filthy kisses, the wet slide of the Bull's tongue against Dorian's as they fuck, the Bull's cock jerking hotly inside him, the Bull's hands teasing at the soft skin of his belly, his hips. Dorian gasping against the Bull's lips as he comes, hands clutching convulsively at the Bull's shoulders, the whole of him trembling with exertion. There are few parts of the Bull untouched by Dorian's mouth. Every private part of him will remember Dorian for years to come, after they inevitably—well, after.

Dorian hates the thought of there being an after. If he knew that the Bull's thoughts wandered daily in a similar direction, would he dare to believe it? Unlikely. An obscene idea, to keep a person like the Bull all to himself, hoard his touches jealously. Unworthy.

They have only fucked. How many times? Fifteen, sixteen. It should only have been once. It will be more. But this is what it is: they are friends, except when they are naked together. Desire is a living, burning thing that consumes them from the inside out, but only in moments.

So Dorian tells the story to himself. But that does nothing to explain why he thinks so very much about kisses.

Yes. They have kissed. One may do many things in the heat of the moment. Say many things. 

Oh, you're incredible, oh, oh, Bull, I could kiss you forever.

Shit, you're beautiful.

Add modifiers: when you're all messed up like this, desperate for me to fuck you. With my marks on your skin. Make it dirty. Laugh and gasp and moan your way through the words.

It's a delight. 

But these are not the only kisses Dorian thinks of, or the only moments he wants. This has always been his failing. It is too tempting to be greedy. A little more, a little more again. To try to keep things that are only offered for a moment. 

The Bull keeps offering moments, and that makes it harder to resist.

The Bull wishes, in his way, for something he cannot name. He only knows how to offer moments. But he wants, he wants.

Dorian does not know that. The leap he dreams of making, he would make blindly.

In daydreams, sometimes, they are dressed together. They get dressed together, perhaps. The Bull adjust Dorian's clothes, smooths out a crease with his huge palm. He bends to kiss Dorian softly, and it has nothing to do with sex, everything to do with—

Well, with the kind of thing that has Dorian slamming his book irritably shut and trying to resist the urge to throw it at the wall.

"Fuck a qunari," Dorian says angrily to no-one at all, in the privacy of his own room. "It'll be _fun_. What on earth could possibly go wrong? After all, they don't do _lo—_ "

Even alone, the word sticks in his throat.

What he does not know is: the Bull knows. The Bull _knows_. He has no idea what to do with the knowledge, with the way Dorian hesitates sometimes, stares at his lips. In the tavern, in the library, on the edge of a cliff in the Dales. In one of their rooms, before they fuck. When one of them is on the verge of leaving, after.

If Dorian knew he was seen, would it give him strength? Would it scare him into flight?

He imagines the Bull kissing him, but what he needs is to kiss the Bull.

Yes, they have kissed. Quite ludicrous, then, that Dorian's heart should seem to flutter anxiously in his chest. That his palms should be damp. Not half an hour ago the Bull's come was striped across his chest, and the Bull smirked wickedly at him before licking it away, kissing Dorian with the last of it still on his tongue.

But now the Bull is tugging on his boots, groaning as he straightens up. It's only early afternoon, quite improper of them to have slipped away like this after lunch without a thought for their duties. Of course the Bull must go. Dorian must, too, if it comes to that.

First, though—first—

"Bull," Dorian says. "Come here. Let me look at you."

He adjusts the strap of the Bull's harness minutely, rubs an imagine speck of dirt from the corner of the Bull's mouth.

His pulse is deafening in his own ears. He coaxes the Bull into bending a little for him.

"Come back tonight," he says, and swallows hard, more anxious than he had been about that first round of sex. "I found some books I think you might be interested in annotating angrily with me."

"Mm," the Bull says, smiles, "you know how to please a guy."

Dorian laughs and, knowing he is flushing terribly, that his hands are shaking a little where they cup the Bull's face, kisses him carefully on the lips. A new kind of offer, tentatively made.

"Wouldn't miss it," the Bull says, his voice a little rough, and finally, finally, finally kisses Dorian back.


	5. Good morning kiss

In the mess hall beside the kitchens, breakfast is laid out on long tables. Pickled fish and cured meat and cheeses. Fruit from Ferelden, Orlais, the Free Marches. Porridges in huge pots and solid dark breads wrapped in cloth, still warm from the ovens. Blessed he is in the sight of the Maker: the reach of the Inquisition is long enough to bring in coffee. None of these southerners take it as strong as Dorian would prefer, but he makes do, stirs far too much sugar through it and spreads quince preserve on bread and sighs in relief at these small comforts. The underlying astringency of the quinces, that aroma he has always loved.

Today the coffee is better than expected, even.

"I feel," Dorian says airily, when the Bull settles beside him, "quite content."

“Oh, shit,” the Bull says. “Where’s Dorian?”

Dorian laughs. He holds out his bread for the Bull to take a bite. The Bull's lips brush against his fingertips, a delightful little touch that thrills through him.

Across the table, Sera chokes on her tea.

"Hm," the Bull says. "Pretty good. Where'd that come from?"

"Hey, wait up," Sera says. "Wait just a fucking minute—"

"Maevaris lent me a hand in securing some new trade connections for the inquisition," Dorian says, not waiting for so much as a second. "As I'm sure you can see, my motives were purely philanthropic."

"Ugh," Sera says. "Who cares about your phallo-whatsit. You're _married._ I didn't fucking know you were married, doing all your stupid couple-y stuff. Eating each other's food and making eyes and shit."

It wasn't a secret. Dorian had perhaps neglected to mention the way things were between them now, did not have words for it, for the casual intimacies they could share these days. He had thought—he had hoped—that people would understand.

Apparently Sera more or less had.

What a terrifying thought, to get what one had wanted.

"Darling," the Bull says, very calmly and without so much as a quirk of the lips, because he's a terrifying bastard like that, oh Maker, oh Andraste, why is Dorian fighting down laughter, when did he get to know this man so well, "when did we get married? Can't believe you didn't invite me."

"Oh, you know how it is," Dorian says, although he does not do as good a job as the Bull at keeping a straight face. "It was a very small ceremony, and you in yourself are, by your nature, terribly large. It simply wouldn't have done at all."

"Huh," the Bull says, as if giving this line of argument full and genuine consideration. "Fine, but you'd better invite me to our anniversary dinner."

"Certainly not," Dorian says. "Then I would have to share the chocolate I had shipped from Tevinter. I refuse."

He smiles warmly up at the Bull, who finally, finally cracks a grin. Sera is already running the risk of crossing over from laughter to howling.

"From Tevinter?" the Bull says, quieter.

"Yes, well," Dorian says, "my contact network may be quite marvelous, but it does not in fact stretch as far as Par Vollen, so if you want the best then you're going to have to put some back into it yourself."

"I'll see what I can do," the Bull says, and Dorian laughs.

Sera makes a retching noise at the look they exchange, but earns only a shrug from Dorian.

To kiss the Bull is a little bit of a stretch, even sitting, so it's just as well the Bull is generally willing to meet him halfway. Between them, the tartness of quinces; the sweetness of coffee with too much sugar.

"Good morning, amatus," Dorian says.


	6. Sad kiss

Par Vollen was subject, on occasion, to tremors. A book fell from a shelf and trees swayed and then life went on. Sometimes more than that: a house cracked and slipped on a hillside, a chasm opened along the middle of a street. The scholars had their theories about what lay below the world, about things that slowly shifted and slid. As a child, though, The Iron Bull thought it the work of demons, as all incomprehensible and frightening things must be. 

He might have dreamt the things he sees now already before his sixth year.

The ground pitches beneath his feet, a wrenching moment as the land tears itself apart. The wreck of the temple rises against the sickly green of the breach.

"Well," Dorian says beside him, and seems to find no flippant remark to follow with.

Well indeed.

High above them, a dragon screams rage. Somewhere up there, Jana fights. Or: let it be so that Jana fights, tooth and nail—she never feared a dragon's rage, say she doesn't fear this. Let her fucking show them all. Let her be a hero again.

Now, here, they have their own battle. Yeah, it could be a dream: the rocks part and demons spill across the land, too many to count, no damn end to them.

Maul in hand, one more time. It wouldn't be a bad way to go.

"You ready?" he asks Dorian, and Dorian turns to look up at him, and he doesn't have to say _no_. It's all over his face. It's in his fucking _eyes_ , oh shit, no-one should ever make him look like that.

It wouldn't be a bad way to go, and The Iron Bull doesn't damn well want to, and that's the surprise. More than the demon army, more than the flying rocks.

It's too soon. But here's the thing, here's the big secret, the part where The Iron Bull fucked up: 

For as long as Dorian still wants to fuck him and laugh with him and drink with him in the tavern, for as long as he can coax Dorian into staying the night and waking up warm in his arms, it'll always be too soon.

No solid footing to be had here. He could never have dreamt Dorian.

"Oh, I don't know," Dorian manages, and if the pause was too long, well, what's a little soulful gazing between friends who can't seem to stop fucking. "I did have other plans for the afternoon, but I suppose one simply must."

"Shit," The Iron Bull says, and then, "Dorian, I'm going to," but he doesn't have to finish asking for permission: Dorian is already kissing him, and maybe, maybe, if they're lucky, later Dorian will have the chance to deny the fact that he sobs against The Iron Bull's mouth, _certainly not, I'll have you know that I'm never emotional. I'm heartless, you know._ A smile.

Now, The Iron Bull holds on too hard, an arm tight around Dorian's waist, feeling the bulk of him: solid and real and living. Groans at the scrape of Dorian's teeth across his lower lip. Dorian's cheek is rough with stubble under The Iron Bull's fingers, in want of shaving. Later, later, later.

"Yes," Dorian says finally, into the merest half-inch between their lips. "I'm ready."

He's a terrible liar. 

But his magic's no weaker for that, sparks and swells and fills the air around them with the power of his will.

Let that be enough.

The ground still trembles. Side by side, they turn to face the horde.


	7. "I almost lost you" kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follows on from the previous chapter.

The truth is that the Bull doesn't notice the moment when it happens. He's caught in the flow of battle, the rush of blood pounding in his his head, guiding him. Swing a broad arc, a sidestep to let the backswing shear through the shade that slinks behind him. Demon blood on his face, and he smears it away, eye clear. Laughs. You're a terror? I'm a terror. Your very own.

The demons are beyond counting, and he can't say how long they've been doing this. He and Dorian have their rhythm, their own little unit of two in the middle of a sprawling battle, and about now Dorian's magic will whisper around him. Protection. Dorian's careful about that, _and really, who can blame me, with the way you throw yourself into battle as though you could take an archdemon alone._

No barrier forms, and that's when he knows.

Logic: a hundred reasons for Dorian to save his mana for some other spell. For the flow of battle to pull them apart. But the Bull knows, an irrational certainty that fills him, a whole-body coldness. Something's wrong.

Something's _wrong._

He throws himself—not back, a war of instincts that he's not so far gone as to lose. Forward, there's only forward. Covering fire, and that's Sera, two of Cullen's lot clearing space for her to get her shots in, a good place to spend his energy. Make a wall of himself for someone. And Dorian—

Dorian will have to be fine. 

He isn't. 

He has to be.

But there is a pragmatism at the Bull's core that he can't allow to be shaken. Duty may be one thing or another, but it's always enveloping and huge. He gives himself to the duty of battle, and for a span of time there's only the ebb and flow of it, like a tide. And the fucking sea of demons is changeless. And Dorian doesn't resurface.

 

 

Aftermath: a permanently scarred sky, heavy and dull. The dead will have to be reckoned, the injured cared for. The world shakes and shakes and shakes, shakes demons into nothingness, shakes rocks from the sky.

The Bull watches it all on his knees, head tipped back. His axe clattered away over the rocks when he lost his footing, but he's a knife or two for stragglers, if he can find the energy. He probably can't. He feels drained in a way he's not sure he's experienced before, not the grinding bloody exhaustion of Seheron. Not chronic but acute. From fighting to the feeling that he'll never move again in moments.

"Nice one, Jana," he says to the sky, and doesn't get up, though he knows that he has to. Just a breathing space, to think that Dorian is laughing with the others on the other side of the rise, that he can drag himself back and have Dorian say something snide with a voice full of fondness.

He'll go back when he's had his moment, let it settle, got himself thinking clearly again.

It takes a long time. 

His knees begin to ache.

 

 

"There you are," someone says, and the Bull jolts awake, curses, eye wide, straight into readiness for a fight. But there's no-one to fight. There's only—it's only—

"Dorian," the Bull says blankly. Dorian, someone else's cloak pulled around his shoulders, paler than he should ever be. His posture is off, a little bit hunched like his stomach's bothering him, and there's a gash on his cheek. But he's standing by himself.

"They said you hadn't come back," Dorian says. Lips parted, eyebrows creased. The Bull catalogues Dorian's pain, reads it from every inch of him and finds it a mirror of his own. A shared instinct: something's wrong.

"You fell," the Bull says, like it's an explanation.

"Ah, yes," Dorian says lightly. "I very nearly died, in fact, and I'm told that all the healing magic in the world won't save me from a very impressive scar, and the whole thing would be quite the story for the grandchildren were I in any way inclined to procure any. If you must know, I let some sort of hunger demon try to gut me, and the entire thing was quite hideously humiliating and painful."

And it's real. It's really Dorian, posturing and downplaying and making light of wounds that should have had him off his feet for a week even _with_ magic. 

"Fuck," the Bull says. 

"Madame de Fer picked me up," Dorian says. "Thank her. Bull, please tell me that you're not quietly bleeding to death down there, because I must tell you that there are a number of really quite simple spells I could be using to prevent it and if you insist on dying out of—of—whatever it is you're doing right now I will personally do something very uncomfortable to—oh—"

As kisses go, it's a mess. Too much teeth, Dorian's nose colliding awkwardly with the Bull's. He quite nearly misses Dorian's mouth to begin with, smears the first kiss across his chin, follows it with another and another, Dorian's breath in his mouth. He swallows it down. The intimacy of it, the closeness. Yes, we're both still breathing—

"I'm not bleeding to death," the Bull says. "You didn't lose me."

And he means:

I didn't lose you.

I didn't want to.

Possibly he even means: I need you.

And won't that be a mess of a conversation, later.

But now he kisses Dorian again, hands in his messy hair, and thinks: we made it through. We made it, we made it, we made it. Like an improbable dream.


	8. kiss on the nose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follows on from the previous two chapters.

The air warms as the Bull rides in across the bridge to Skyhold. Snow hardly settles there. Haven had the bitterness of late Autumn, and the mountain peaks around Skyhold are white with snow. The road was icy.

But the grass is green in the training yard, yellow autumn flowers nestling along the edge of the armory building. Here red and orange leaves hold on, rustling in the breeze.

Josie's voice echoes across the yard. "No, to the left, the left! Oh, really—" Long tables in rows outside, not arranged to satisfaction. Carts bringing in food, tray upon tray unloaded and carried in to the kitchens. Up on the battlements, the hangings from the great hall are being beaten, clouds of dust billowing out into the blue sky.

"Oh!" Josie exclaims when she catches sight of him and his boys. "The Iron Bull! Are you all back already? Oh _dear_ —"

"Don't worry, it's only me," he says. "Forward guard to let you know how they're going. The others are travelling with Cullen's forces. Tomorrow afternoon." A day's travel behind him, Dorian and Sera are presumably driving Jana to distraction. It's what they do best.

"Oh, thank goodness," Josie says. "I mean to say—I very much look forward to our Inquisitor's return, of course. It's only that as long as she's away I can reasonably put off all these well-wishers. We really haven't the makings of a party today, and it would be quite terrible to—oh, do excuse me, they're setting the benches out all wrong—"

The Bull lets her get on with it. Great woman, Josie. She'll manage it, and if she wants him to carry something he'll know about it. Up to his room, left in chaos as he scrambled to get his gear together, Cullen yelling down in the yard, uproar throughout the fortress. Dorian had been with him at the time.

A book of his, still open on the Bull's bedside table. A discarded cloak hung from a chair. When the Bull throws himself onto the bed at last to rest, the smell of Dorian clings to the sheets.

Dorian, who he had thought for some hours to be lost.

Imagine: to come home to this room, full of the traces of their tentatively shared life, and know—

Fuck.

He gets up again, and goes downstairs to find a drink. Cabot has refused to be dragged into the party chaos; he's as he always is. Thank fuck for that.

Krem, Dalish and Rocky are hanging around in the corner playing cards.

"Cheer up, Chief," Krem says. "I know you're lovesick over the Altus, but you're ruining the atmosphere."

"Really," the Bull says. "Really. That's low, Krem. That's damn low. You want me to bring up your mooning? You think I won't?"

"Alright, alright," Krem says, laughing. "No need to get like that." His ears are slightly pink. No music tonight, is there. 

Hmm.

 

 

Flags fly above the inquisition forces. Tired horses, tired soldiers, but they're marching well. Wagons behind the troops. Dorian, he sees, rides. Must be doing well. Or he's too stubborn.

Probably both. The Bull feels warm with affection at the thought.

 

 

Inevitably, Josie's party is a success, in an Orlesian sort of way.

She doesn't even insist he wear a shirt.

"On this occasion, you are one of our heros, and as such you may wear your usual clothes." A pause. "Without bloodstains, if you please."

"Yes ma'am," the Bull says, and she smiles at him very prettily even though he knows damn well she's thinking about ten other things, his bloodstains already checked off the list in her head.

Damn fine woman.

Dorian lounges elegantly to hide how tired he is from the ride. Talks with Jana, casts a quick glance in the Bull's direction at something she says. A smile, for him, so very open for the briefest of moments. A more schooled smile for Jana, though the Bull would bet his eyes are still fond.

They steal a kiss in the quietest corner of the garden before Dorian is called away to be witty at people. 

The Bull's mouth remembers the taste of Dorian's for the rest of the evening.

 

 

By the time the Bull leaves the Chargers to their own party, Dorian has long since vanished. The Bull creeps back in the kitchen way, makes his way around through the upper levels of the hall, past the corner Vivienne uses to entertain, moonlight glinting through the high windows. Below, drunken laughter, voices turning shrill. People speak too loudly in this moment of victory; were he still Ben Hassrath, would he pause for a while, listen to all these words and catalogue them?

He isn't. He doesn't.

Dorian's room is above the garden, the door tucked away in the lee of a tower. In the summer the scent of flowers would drift up to meet the Bull. Now fruit hangs from the branches of trees, and the twisted stems of the vines are growing bare.

Light filters out from under Dorian's door, and the Bull finds he must take a moment to consider himself. The things he needs to say. The things he wants to say, too.

He feels he must leap blindly now, and he dislikes it.

He opens the door. Dorian looks up from his writing, and smiles, and his expression is so soft.

"Bull," Dorian says. "Close the door. I'll only be a moment."

 

 

The scratch of Dorian's quill. His lantern flickers, warm light pooling around his hands as he works, catching his face from below. Shadows his eyes.

Under his tunic is a scar, twisting across his stomach and up his chest, hip to sternum. He has his memento from that final desperate battle. The skin must still be tender. It must pull strangely. The Bull knows plenty about scars, but he doesn't know how Dorian will wear his.

He wants to know.

"Hey," he says quietly, and Dorian lays aside his quill, looks up. His face in profile is every bit as gorgeous as he's always claimed.

"Yes, yes, terribly dull of me to be sitting here when I could be allowing you to do something unspeakably wonderful and depraved to me. I was only writing a letter. I have no intention of sending it, in any case."

Oh, he's very tired.

"I was thinking of talking to you," the Bull says. "Don't know if that counts as depraved where you come from." 

A flash of uncertainty, obvious even with his face half-shadowed. "Oh, terribly. One isn't meant to actually _talk_ with the people one beds. It shows a lack of breeding and a dangerously sentimental disposition." Dorian makes a game attempt at smiling. "What have you to say, then?"

"Uh," the Bull says. "I wanted to talk about my feelings, actually."

There is a terribly silent moment. The lamp sputters quietly.

"Your feelings," Dorian says slowly.

"I might have said something about not knowing if I could really do feelings. Not that kind."

"Yes," Dorian says, guardedly light. "You may indeed have said something to that effect."

It'd been a rough night. And that he'd stayed with Dorian, talked through the whole confused mess, fucked him twice more and then held him until he slept—that he'd held onto Dorian although he knew what Dorian needed was to be loved without question—

That had been his answer. He hadn't seen it until—

"I might have been," the Bull says, growls under his breath. Too equivocal. "No, I mean I was—Fuck. I was wrong."

Dorian is staring at him. Only staring, as though he can't understand what the Bull is trying to say.

"I'm in love with you," the Bull says.

Dorian had turned sideways on his chair to face the Bull. He clutches the back of it now, as though afraid to fall.

"You," he says. "I—that is—"

"Yeah," the Bull says. "Sorry it took me so damn long."

"Come here," Dorian demands, pulls the Bull down to kneel before him. Stares at him in amazement. "You are entirely—I cannot believe—"

A kiss pressed to the Bull's brow, above the ruin of his left eye. To his cheek. Dorian lingers over kissing his nose, sobs a laugh, kisses it again; traces his fingers over the bridge, down to the tip, as though he's seeing something there that means something. It should be funny, maybe—the Bull might make a joke, some other day.

Instead he has to close his eye, draw a deep breath that shudders in this throat.

Only a handful of days ago they thought each other dead.

Dorian's lips are soft against the side of his nose. They shift against his skin.

The Bull hopes it's a smile.

"I've slept poorly without you," Dorian says, in tones of confession, the sort of words he would normally only speak in total darkness. "But I fancy I can persuade you to stay tonight."

"Anything you want," the Bull says. Opens his eye to see the last of Dorian's disbelief giving way to something warmer.

A long, slow kiss, his hands on Dorian's hips.

"Be careful what you offer," Dorian says, when they part.

"I don't know," the Bull says with a smile. "Careful's overrated. Anyway, you've already got me."


End file.
